With Nintendo’s meteoric rise back to dominance in the games industry, certain language has become ubiquitous in referring to both videogames and gamers. “Casual” is used to describe games with simple interfaces that don’t require a significant investment of time to play while “hardcore” typically refers to games with more complex interfaces, the mastery of which takes practice and often hours of play time. A “casual” is someone who is a new or lapsed gamer unfamiliar with the medium’s tropes and who plays relatively few games. A “hardcore” is typically a prolific gamer with a taste for more action heavy fare. While these words are certainly useful and their meaning is clear, I sometimes wonder if they’re doing a disservice to their subjects. Both have taken on certain derogatory connotations within their respective communities, “casual” being used to delegitimize and “hardcore” to stigmatize. I think that perhaps the continuing and rampant growth of gaming in our culture would be better served by different sorts of classification. Instead of casual, marketing firms might be better off saying “new” gamers considering they want that audience to continue to be engaged in their products. And maybe instead of hardcore, just plain old “gamers” would better describe people who play games of all types. Why draw lines where they don’t have to be?
